John Stuart Mill & the merits of free speech
The Wuhan lab-leak hypothesis as a case study
“If all of mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.” Why? Because “we can never be sure that the opinion that we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion." The opinion "may possibly be true.”
This is one of three central arguments that John Stuart Mill makes for the importance of free speech in his famous essay, “On Liberty.” Mill, a 19th century English philosopher, argued that protection against the tyranny of the government was not enough; he asserted that there must also be “protection against the tyranny of prevailing opinion and feeling.”
Mill was making the case for a marketplace of ideas in which members of a society engage with a diverse range of opinions and the strongest argument receives the most support. Essentially, he was making an ethical argument for why a society should not shut down or censor dissenting points of view, even when, or especially when, they are a minority opinion. He recognized that humans are fallible and that the pursuit of truth requires “the collation and combination of ideas and propositions, even those that seem to be in opposition to each other.”
Mill's arguments for free speech ought to be taught in high schools and universities alike. And the Wuhan lab-leak hypothesis provides an interesting case study to think through Mill’s arguments, which advocated for a society that is open to a range of viewpoints, however fringe they might initially seem.
Read my full argument for why the Wuhan lab-leak hypothesis provides a case study for the merits of free speech on the Orange County Register, and use the case study in your classroom to teach the merits of free speech.